Gaura-purnima. CC.adi.17.7-9
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Bangalore · 2024
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Introduction to Gayagamana Lila
So we will read a few verses from the seventeenth chapter of Adidila Sri Chaitanya Chaitamrita. And I will have chosen to speak because I was given freedom to choose my topic.
I have chosen to speak on the topic of Gayagamana Lila of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, which was the turning point in his life, and in many senses in our own life. when he took initiation from Sri Iswarapuri.
So we'll speak on this Gay Gamana Lila, but I will first read a couple of verses from Sri Chaitanya Chaitamritam Jaja Sri Chaitana Jainitananda Jaya dweta chandra jaya gore bhakta vrinda, ja ja srichaitana, jainitananda, Jay dwai te chandra ja gorba bhakta vrinda, ja ja srichaitana, ja nietananda, Ja dwai ta chandra ja guru bhakta vrinda Okay,
let's let's start from the verse number seven. Vayuvyadi Chali Kaila Prema Prakasha Prakash Bhaktagana Laya Kaila Vividhavilas. Translation.
In his youth, the Lord exhibited his ecstatic love of Krishna on the plea of disturbance of the bodily airs. Accompanied by his confidential devotees, he enjoyed various pastimes in this way.
According to Ayurvedic treatment, the entire psychological system is conducted by three elements: namely Vayupita and Kappa, air, bile and mucus.
Secretions within the body transform into other secretions like blood, urine and stool, and if there are disturbances in the metabolism, the secretions turn into kappa mucus by the influence of the air within the body.
This is the for those who are preparing for a new pandemic of COVID, they should know this.
According to the Ayurvedic system, when the secretion of bile and formation of mucus disturb the air circulating within the body, fifty-nine varieties of disease may occur. One such disease is craziness.
On the plea of disturbance of the bodily air and metabolism, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu acted as if crazy. Thus, in his school, he began to explain the grammar of verbs through Krishna consciousness.
Explaining everything in grammar in relationship to Krishna, the Lord induced his students to refrain from worldly education. For it is better to become Krishna conscious and in this way attain the highest perfectional platform of education.
On these grounds, Sri Jiva Goswami. Later compiled the grammar entitled Harina Mamritav Yakarna. People in general consider such explanations crazy.
Therefore, the Lord's purpose in his attitude of craziness was to explain that there is nothing within our experience but Krishna consciousness for everything may be dovetailed with Krishna consciousness.
These pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu have been very vividly described in the Caitanya-bhāgavata, Madhya-khaṇḍa, chapter 1, text number 8:
Journey to Gaya and meeting Ishvara Puri
tad-antara karila prabhu gayā-gamana īśvara-purīra saṅge tāṅhāra milana. Translation: "After this, the Lord went to Gayā." There he met Śrīla Īśvara Purī. Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda:
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu went to Gayā to offer respectful oblations to his forefathers. This process is called Pindadan. In Vedic society, after the deaths of a relative, especially
one's father or mother, one must go to Gaya and there offer ablations to the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu. Therefore hundreds and thousands of men gather in Gaya daily to offer such ablations, or śrāddha.
Following this principle, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also went there to offer Pinda to his dead father. Fortunately, he met Īśvara Purī there. Text number 9:
dīkṣā-nantari' hoila premera prakāśa deśe āgamana punaḥ premera vilāsa. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was initiated by Īśvara Purī and immediately afterwards he exhibited signs of love of Godhead.
He again displayed such symptoms after returning home. Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went to Gaya, accompanied by many of his disciples, he became sick on the way.
He had such a high fever that he asked his students to bring water that had washed the feet of Brahmanas. And when they brought it to the Lord, when they brought it the Lord drank it and was cured.
Therefore, everyone should respect the position of the Brahmana as indicated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Neither the Lord nor his followers displayed any disrespect to the Brahmanas.
The followers of the Lord must be prepared to offer brāhmaṇas all due respect, but preachers of Lord Caitanya's cult object if someone presents himself as a brāhmaṇa without having the necessary qualifications;
the followers of Lord Caitanya cannot blindly accept that everyone born in a brāhmaṇa family is a brāhmaṇa. Therefore one should not indiscriminately follow the Lord's example of showing respect to Brahmanas by drinking water that has washed their feet.
Gradually the Brahmana families have become degraded because of the contamination of Kali Yuga. Thus they misguided people by exploiting their sentiments.
Srila Prabhupada Chaya Namau Vishnu Padaya Krishna Prashtaya Bhutale Srimati Bhaktividanta Swami Nitinamini, Namaste Saraswati Devi Goravani Pracharini, Nirvis Sunyavati, Paschat Satarini, Vanchakal Patarubaschak, Kripasind Dube Vacha, Patitanam Pavanebyo Vaishnava Byonaw Mahat.
Jai Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhunitananda, Sri Adwaita Gadhathara, Srivassadhi Gaurabhakta Vrinda, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare
Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama
Ramahare Hari Ajanu Lambiitu Joka Naka tu samkirtanaika bi taroka malayaksha, viswambaru dvi já varu, Yuga Dharma Palu Vandai, Jagat Priya Guru Guru Karunavataru,
Yandah pravi Mamavach, Sanji Vaya te kila Shakti Darah Swadamna, anjam charanah shravnat pa gadim, prananda mwhagawate, pur sh dubi, swastu Vishwassa Kalah, prasidatam, dyan tu butani, shivammit dudiya manaschabadram Pajata Dokshachait Aveshyatam no Matir Bahai to ki Krishna
Krishna. I am very happy to be back to this beautiful temple. Of course I am for the first time in this particular building, but I am not for the first time in Bangalore and I dearly respect and love devotees in Bangalore.
So thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you.
Importance of formal spiritual initiation
Uh because we are preparing ourselves uh uh For celebrating Gorpurn, which is the festival commemorating the purpose of Lord coming to this Kali Yuga to deliver all of us.
Since we are preparing ourselves to this joyous and wonderful event. We are discussing different aspects of Lord's pastimes in the morning before Gorpurn.
And I have chosen to speak on this Gayagamana Leela because as Srila Prabhupada showed even in this three purpose which we read, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu could fulfill His mission of distributing love of God only when
He Himself was officially initiated by Īśvarapūrī. It is very clearly said in the first verse which we read that Lord Caitanya before the initiation by Īśvarapūrī, before His Gayā-gamana-līlā, before meeting with Īśvarapūrī and taking mantra from Him, He was full of ecstatic love of God.
Of course, some people, including his mother, thought that it's some sort of craziness. And His mother was applying some special oil on His head, some śiva-taila.
Bringing Him back into normalcy because sometimes He was displaying some very unusual kind of behavior.
But even though he was displaying this completely ecstatic behavior, he was not able, of course, he was able, he is always God, but in
His līlā He's showing us the process, the proper way of doing things, he was not able to inflict or infect, let us say, using the pandemic language. Infect anyone else by love of God.
It's a special kind of infectious disease which is transferable from one person to another person.
And Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself advented to this world just for this purpose: to show what is the love of God, how beautiful it is, how powerful it is, how enjoyable it is, how joyful it is, and then to start this pandemic
of Kṛṣṇa prema. This pandemic of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there's nothing new about pandemic. Originally it was started by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself, and He wants this pandemic to spread all over the world.
But He shows the proper way of infecting other people or transmitting this craziness into the heart of other people. So He Himself was displaying these beautiful symptoms of love of God.
And of course sometimes it was very unusual, you know, because sometimes
He was beating His wife Viṣṇupriyā on the pretext of being crazy. But in, um, general, as Vṛndāvana Dāsa Ṭhākura explains in Caitanya-bhāgavata, this pastime is described in great detail.
And the Lord lived a very ideal life of a brāhmaṇa. He was teaching His students, He was earning money by teaching students, by getting the free donations for His teaching. And He was displaying the ideal behavior of a brāhmaṇa.
And every now and then He would manifest ecstatic symptoms.
Systematic approach to love of God
But again, the point which I want to make is that, you know, to achieve love of God. There is a path.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came himself, and even though he was sometimes displaying these completely spontaneous and unbelievable symptoms of love of God, he nevertheless showed us the systematic way how to attain it.
That was his purpose, his coming as the teacher of love of God in Kali Yuga to explain that love of God is a systematic process.
You have to follow certain pattern to achieve love of God as an inevitable result of this process.
Even though love of God is it cannot be completely placed into some you know boundaries of certain process. Nevertheless, there is a scientific process. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in this Gaya Gamana Leela explains
where should we start? What is the starting point? Where is the starting point of this beautiful journey, which will ultimately bring us to the lotus feet of Krishna full of love. Not in the condition of moksha.
You know, people they're seeking for moksha, and they say, you know, moksha means that ultimately come to God. But ultimately we want, we do not want just to come to God. You know it's not a big deal to come to God.
You will come to God, you will look at him and you will say, Yes, bye bye, I will go to െന്ന് take prasāda. You know. Coming to God is not a big deal.
Getting liberation, getting some kind of moksha, living in one planet with God or whatever, is not a big deal. It's not such a big achievement.
Chaitanya Mahabrabhu came and he said, if you want to come to God, come to God with something which you can offer to Him. Not just formal, you know, Haribol, you know, Oṁ namo Bhagavate.
You have my business, I have my business. No, coming to God means I come to God and I want to offer my heart to Him. So, how to do this? This is a beautiful journey. How to come to God with heart full of love.
How to gradually fill up our empty heart with love by following this process. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu shows himself. And Vṛndāvana Dāsa Ṭhākura, he is very emphatic.
This is the last chapter of his Ādi-līlā, because Madhya-līlā of Caitanya Bhāgavata is completely devoted to the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu saṅkīrtana movement when he started saṅkīrtana movement.
But the last chapter is Gayā Gamana Līlā.
Purpose and limits of varnasrama discipline
So before saṅkīrtana movement, before Lord Caitanya ventured this saṅkīrtana movement by coming out from his house or from the house of Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita and on the streets of Navadvīpa and distributing love of God, he himself went to Gayā.
But before that, Vṛndāvana Dāsa Ṭhākura makes a very important point. He says that the Lord was leading an ideal life of a brāhmaṇa. He was leading an ideal life of a member of our varṇāśrama society.
He was very pure in his life. He was following all the rules and regulations of Smṛti-śāstra. And Vṛndāvana Dāsa Ṭhākura, he says that the purpose of this is dual.
The first purpose of showing this, that this is the starting point of our journey towards love of God, is to show that you know pure life within varṇāśrama is very much necessary because it prepares the heart to receive the love.
The Lord is ready to give the love, but not anyone can receive the love. If the heart is contaminated, if the heart is dirty, we will not be able to appreciate love. We may even feel sometimes love.
But because the heart is dirty, we will think that, you know, no, this is some you know some sentiment which I have. Let me do something more practical.
So he says the first purpose of the Lord, leading the ideal life of the member of varṇāśrama, brāhmaṇa in this case, the very highly placed brāhmaṇa in this in his case, is to show that this is a necessary preliminary step towards love of God.
But the second purpose of his leading this life is to show that ultimately it's futile. It's important and futile at the same time. It's important because it prepares us to spiritual life. It's not spiritual life itself.
Sometimes people think that leading varṇāśrama life, leading, you know, being brāhmaṇa or being this or that, it's already spiritual life. It's not spiritual life. It's a regulated, beautifully regulated material life.
It's purposeful material life. But its purpose is to come to spirituality. And if this life, however pure, however good and correct and however sincere, doesn't lead you to spirituality, it's completely useless.
Useless varṇāśrama. Useless sanātana-dharma. Because ultimately it's the highest dharma, it's prema dharma. If this notion doesn't come to you. If you don't really understand it, then uh everything what you do is useless.
And in this Gaya Gamana Leela, uh The Lord shows this gradual process of coming or this spiritual awakening.
When we really understand that, you know, the purpose of life is not to lead very pure life according to rules and regulations of varṇāśrama. The purpose of life is not to be happy.
You know, when you live uh very pure life you become naturally happy, you're loving yourself, and because you're so loving, you're attracted, uh you know, so many other people are attracted to you, and the exchange of love makes you happy.
But this is not the ultimate purpose of life. You may be very happy living this life, uh pure life in varṇāśrama society, but still, deep down your heart, you will be not satisfied.
And different rituals of varṇāśrama have a very specific purpose. Ultimately, all the rituals which are recommended in varṇāśrama, the purpose of them is to bring you to the meeting with the devotee.
And therefore, uh, you know, the whole uh beginning of this leal is
that Lord Chaitanya goes to Gayā to perform śrāddha ceremony. And that's a completely rājasic ceremony according to varṇāśrama system. It's not a very highly, you know, placed thing.
But the Lord uses this pretext of going to Gayā to perform śrāddha, to show that no matter how you meet with the devotee, the most important you meet with the devotee. Whatever pretext is.
It may be because you want to, uh, perform some ceremony for your deceased parents and, uh, and going to Gayā or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. The point is that you have to do all these rituals.
But the essence of these rituals, the purpose of all these rituals is ultimately bring you closer to devotee.
Pride as a fever and humility as cure
So this is a beautiful pastime. The Lord has many disciples, and these disciples are very enthusiastic disciples, very devoted to his uh master, to his guru. And he goes with this whole entourage of his disciples to Gaia.
And he is displaying the natural tendency of a guru to be little proud. I mean little or not little. But the natural tendency if you have followers is to become proud, isn't it?
You know, people there's so much after this gaining more and more followers because it gives them some prestige and some understanding, how important I am. Look, I am the leader. And everyone else is my follower and look how many of them are there.
Very impressive crowd. They're all my followers. So, so he goes, he performs this ritual of going to Gaya with many of his disciples and you know enjoying sort of this position.
And in the middle of this journey, which mentions in the purport of the last verse, when he reaches Mandara Mountain, and
he goes to this Mandara Mountain and visiting the temple of Madhusūdana, he all of a sudden falls sick. COVID. Corona. Really sick. Much more sick than from an average person from Corona. High fever.
Really, really, really high fever. And his disciples are worried, totally, completely worried. They don't know the reason why all of a sudden he is so sick. And why all of a sudden the fever is so high.
And they're trying to bring any remedies, but nothing works. The fever becomes higher and higher and higher.
And actually, this whole disease is symbolic, the Lord, by displaying this Lila of getting sick on the way, He's showing us that actually the pride is the disease. And the pride is the disease of fever.
When we become proud, we become feverish. And the fever increases and increases and increases because pride is never satisfied. Pride always wants to increase. We always want to increase our causes for pride.
And there is no remedy for this. Normal remedies don't work. The only remedy from the disease of pride, from this high fever of pride, is humility.
So his disciples are trying to cure him, treating him as the guru, as the master and everything else. But then he himself says, I think there's only one remedy.
There is only one medicine which can cure me from this high fever. If you bring me the water which washed the feet of a pure brāhmaṇa, he specifically says pure brāhmaṇa.
Not just anyone who is dvija and you know proud of his brāhmaṇical. and uh again as I said uh there is a very uh whatever the Lord performs in his Lila, uh in his life, uh, he is doing it for a purpose.
So Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that you may lead a very I'm so good. But then the problem of this will remain because the life of a follower of varṇāśrama will make you proud.
You know, Brāhmaṇas are proud, kṣatriyas are very proud, Vaiśyas are extremely proud, and śūdras are very arrogant. You know. When you perform your dharma, when you you know do all the rituals, the tendency is there.
You become very proud. I'm so pure, I'm so good. I perform my duties so perfectly. Look at me. You know. So this pride is there. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he shows this and he says, this pride is the fever.
That's the disease which we all have. And the cure of this disease is humility and humility, what humility does, please listen very carefully because it's very important. Humility opens our heart. The pride closes our heart.
When we are proud we We physically can feel how our heart is closed and we look down at everyone else. We are not very we are not really receptive to accept something higher. Because there is nothing higher.
We are the highest. The highest achievement is already there. I look at it, I'm so pure. I'm so good. You know, but humility makes our heart soft. And the soft heart is the receptive heart.
The proud heart is the heart which rejects anything higher. The proud heart is the heart which does not allow us to go further in our journey.
Cultivating a receptive heart for truth
If we want to know the truth, we have to be ready to admit our ignorance. And it means to become humble. And Brāhmaṇas who are Brāhmaṇas, who are pure Brāhmaṇas, pure Brāhmaṇas are those people who know the truth.
Only those, why they are called Brahmanas? Because they're supposed to know Brahman.
So the water which was the feet of Brahman is the symbol of this thirst, or which is there among our material life, the thirst to receive the higher truth. If this thirst is not there and subsequent humility, if the subsequent humility doesn't come to our heart, it means we're not ready to start our spiritual life.
Spiritual life means I am not satisfied with whatever is there. I need to know more and for that and because I need to know more, it means that I'm ignorant. And because I am ignorant, I have to become humble in front of those who have this higher knowledge. This is a very important first step.
Of course the first step, the preliminary step, the preliminary step it is to lead very nice and pure life according to Dharmashastra. It's important. There's no doubt about it.
But then this pure life of Dharmashastra of good person, good sattvic person, will have to awaken the thirst for higher knowledge. And with this thirst for higher knowledge, the humility also comes into your heart.
So it's very interesting. The Lord says, please bring me the water from the lotus feet of a brāhmaṇa, of a pure brāhmaṇa. And that definitely reminds us the past time when Lord Krishna also became sick in Vrindavan.
And Nārada Muni became very worried. He was just having a terrible headache, and he was, you know, he was suffering from this headache. And Nārada Muni said, what can cure you, my dear Lord?
He said, the dust from the lotus feet of my devotees can only cure my headache. And of course we know that nobody wanted to give the dust for their lotus feet to the Lord.
And when Nārada Muni came to gopīs, the gopīs said, you know, all our dust is yours. No problem. We will scrape a lot of dust. Let us go to hell. Let us Krishna be happy. No problem. We are not caring about us.
So here by more or less reenacting this pastime also Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is teaching us.
He is teaching us that humility means to accept somebody who is pure, who is a devotee, who is pure devotee, as higher than you, to understand the power of devotion.
So he is displaying this pastime to teach us that this is the starting point of real spiritual life. Humility is the starting point.
When we appreciate the power of devotion and the power of knowledge, because devotion means knowledge, definitely. So the Lord comes.
Vrindavan Das Thakur explains that after this pastime, when this pastime is over, miraculously he is cured.
You know, for many days he was sick with this very high fever, dangerously high fever, and then he drinks the water and he says, Oh, I'm okay, let's go. So, miraculously, he is cured from this disease.
And he goes to Gaya and he reaches Gaya, and in the outskirts of Gaya he first takes the snana in Brahmakund and makes ablations to his forefathers.
Seeing the footprint of Lord Vishnu
And then it's very interesting. He comes to Gaya and he comes to Chakraventi, the place where the lotus feet of the Lord are imprinted. When the Lord stepped down on the head of Gayasura and imprinted his lotus feet there.
And he first, what he sees, what is the first impression, after being humble, he first sees the grandeur of the worship of the Lord. He's very much impressed by this.
The brāhmaṇas are chanting mantras, and the brāhmaṇas are applying sandalwood paste on the lotus feet of the Lord, and the brāhmaṇas are offering the garlands of the flowers to the lotus feet of the Lord, and everyone is this very beautiful, joyful atmosphere which is there when we perform real Vedic rituals.
You know, Vedic rituals are beautiful. You know, the chanting mantras are so majestic, you know, and all these beautiful rituals, you know, m offering some flowers, some sandalwood paste, and everyone becomes joyful.
So the Lord, because his heart is opened, you know, his heart is opened during this humiliating pastime of drinking caraṇāmṛta from the lotus feet of brāhmaṇa. His heart is open.
And then he takes, what he takes, he takes the emotional content of this Vedic ritual.
You know, sometimes we see in this Vedic ritual especially these yagyas which are performed by you know not very qualified ISKCON brāhmaṇas. Sorry.
Because in this conver not very good in all these yajñas we're only good in one yajña Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Everything else is just for performance sake.
Anyway, so you know sometimes we are present in these rituals and we don't understand the essence of these rituals. We're only uh you know performing the some mechanics of these rituals.
We're performing some external uh you know mechanics of the ritual, whereas the essence of the ritual is to impress upon us how great is God.
You know, to impress upon us, to give us this emotion of grandeur and beauty of God. You know, this is the emotional content of the ritual. And if the ritual is performed properly, you will become impressed.
There will be very deep saṁskāra. How beautiful it is, how beautiful is the Lord, you know. It's amazing. He left his uh imprint of his lotus feet and you know for thousands and thousands of years, non-stop.
The brāhmaṇa is constantly chant his glories being uh at his lotus feet and serving his lotus feet by all these uh ingredients of offering fruits and offering flowers and offering uh sandalwood paste.
In one sense, uh, you know, Vedic ritual is very natural. It's very simple.
You know, you offer just some fruits, you know, like today somebody came to me and brought me some fruits from Śālagrāma-śilā. You know, take these fruits from Śālagrāma-śilā. It's very natural, you know. Some fruits.
You know, the Lord doesn't ask you to, you know, like yesterday Ravi Kirti showed me this Nityānanda Baba who was sitting on the golden throne and was all clad in gold and everything else.
Lord doesn't say, you know, worship me with gold. He says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ, you know, just one fruit, one leaf, something like this. But if you do it properly, then you understand the grandeur of God.
He's so great and He's accepting my offering, and I feel He's accepting my offering. And the, you know, the of course the mantras of the Vedas, they give you this understanding of this.
And you know the brāhmaṇas, the Lord Caitanya is there, he's visiting this uh place where uh the uh imprint the footprint of the lotus feet of the Lord is there and the brāhmaṇas are chanting and glorifying the lotus feet of the Lord.
The brāhmaṇas are saying, uh śrī-lakṣmī uh holds this lotus feet of the Lord as the most dear to her life. The goddess of fortune who is you know the goddess of all the opulences.
The goddess of everyone is seeking the favor of goddess Lakshmi and she's humbly worshiping this lotus feet. And Lord Shiva, he brings these lotus feet and uh closes them to his bosom.
He just you know takes them and worships them and Bali enjoys them when the Lord puts Bali Mahārāja, powerful Mahārāja enjoys them when the Lord puts them to his head.
So these brāhmaṇas they are glorifying again and again and again the lotus feet, the power of the lotus feet of the Lord. How precious it is. And the same Lord, He came and He left this lotus feet to us.
We have the same opportunity as Lakshmi Devi, have the same opportunity as Lord Shiva, have the same opportunity as Lord Brahma, who took the water from
which washed the lotus feet of the Lord in his Kamaṇḍalu and this water became Gangā.
So the brāhmaṇas, they're glorifying again and again and again the power, the purifying power of the lotus feet of the Lord and uh Lord Chaitanya sees how sincerely they worship uh these lotus feet of the Lord and
Purpose of visiting holy pilgrimage sites
uh he is overwhelmed, and this is for the first time, Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura says, for the first time the ecstatic symptoms come to him.
How come for the first time before that he was already, you know, crazy Nimai, he was already doing some crazy things, teaching grammar in a very crazy way, you know, everything is the Lord, nothing else is there. No.
Because it's bona fide. Because he shows systematically what, is the step by step by step?
You know, you open your heart by humility, you go to a holy place, you meet with some transcendental manifestation of the Lord in the holy place, in this particular holy place of Gayā, this is the Viṣṇupāda, the feet of the Lord.
And then you see how other glorifies the Lord, and then you feel the emotions. The emotions which they feel, which are actually stored in the holy places, being reflected in your pure heart or receptive heart.
So that's what happened. That's what's supposed to happen with us when we go to pilgrimage. When we go to Vṛndāvana, when we go to Māyāpur, when we go to Gayā, any other place, when we go to Of
course, you know we have to understand that the purpose of going there is to receive the glimpse of the love towards the Lord which is stored in this particular place.
I was in Uḍupi now and uh I met some, you0 know, very young devotee. Maybe he's present here, I don't know. Uh uh he didn't he didn't know who I am, but he started telling
me that he's aspiring for Lokanātha Mahārāja and he takes initiation and this and that and then he says I'll go to yātrā. I said where are you going to Yatra? He said, I will go to one I don't remember the place.
He said it's a very beautiful Shiva temple and there Nandi is growing. The stone Nandi is growing and growing. I will go there. You know, the purpose of yatra is not to go to some place where some miracle takes place.
It's okay if you need miracles, no problem. Go there, strengthen your faith by miracles. But actually, the purpose of yatra is not this. The purpose of yatra is to receive the glimpses of love which are there.
Those people who worship the lotus feet of the Lord in these places, their worship, their emotions, they are stored there.
They are inカワ the ether of these places, there such, they saturate these places, and we go there and gratefully receive this gift of spiritual emotions there.
And Lord Chaitanya shows, and therefore, Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura says, for the first time, he experiences the real spiritual emotions.
Because for the first time he opens his heart in his līlā, of course, and for the first time he shows this is what it is. I go there. I go there as a humble pilgrim.
And as a humble pilgrim, I try to respect everyone who is there and uh receive what they have in their heart. And the Lord Chaitanya, you know, all of a sudden all the hairs in his body stood an end.
And the tears started flowing like Ganga river.
And all the Brahmanas they look at him and say, who is that? And he's so beautiful, he's crying and crying and crying and you know they look at him and they also start crying. So this is how it is.
You know he becomes very impressed by the lotus feet of the Lord and he says, this is my goal. He has this first experience, first experience in a sense that experience which will become the goal of his life.
Because before that, what was the goal of his life?
He was displaying his paṇḍita līlā, his vyākaraṇa līlā, you know, he was teaching vyākaraṇa and showing other people. So his goal of life was to know the Vedic knowledge.
For the first time, he shows the goal of life is the lotus feet of the Lord. I want to achieve the lotus feet of the Lord. Because just being present next to them, I feel so blissful. I feel so immensely blissful.
Encounter with spiritual master Ishvara Puri
And at this very moment, please listen very carefully because this is the description, the important description of the dynamic of spiritual life.
And this very moment, when he is crying at the lotus feet of the Lord in Gaya, at this very moment, Ishvaripuri, Ishwarapuri shows up at the same place.
Krishna brings Ishwara Puri at this very moment when the Lord needs him the most. And the Lord looks at Ishwarapuri. And of course he knows Ishwarapuri.
He met with Ishwarapuri before in Navadvīpa. Īśvarapurī spent almost one month in Navadvīpa, a couple of weeks at least in Navadvīpa, staying in the house of Nandācārya and he had some interaction and he took some prasāda at Lord Caitanya's home, and Lord Caitanya by bidding farewell to him, he said, sometime in the future I will meet with you again.
So at this moment of time, when he saw overwhelmed with this spirituality, with the flows, spiritual emotions which are coming to him from this chanting of
the very hymns of the brāhmaṇas and from this worship of from these Vedic rituals. At this very moment, Ishwarapuri comes to this place and Lord
uh Lord Caitanya looks at him and he says, now I understand everything. Now I understand why I come here. I came here not to perform Shraddha ceremony, which I thought I'm coming for this.
I came here not even to see the lotus feet of the Lord. The real purpose of my coming here is to see you. Because where your lotus feet is there, then the lotus feet of the Lord is there.
You know, tīrtha-kurvanti tīrthāni he chants this verse from first canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam where Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja says that you know, whenever pure devotee is there, then the Lord is there. The Lord is where the pure devotee is.
And why I said it's so important to see this coincidence, this of course, we know there's no coincidence. Even in our life, there is no coincidence. Everything has some purpose. Everything has some purpose to teach us.
Moreover, there is no coincidence in the Lord's life. So the teaching here is very important.
When the sincere desire to worship the Lord through the encounter with some manifestation of the Lord which are there in this world. When this desire, even if it's a glimpse of sincere desire,
a little spark of sincere desire, when this sincere desire comes to your heart, then the Lord arranges your meeting with your spiritual master. He sends you the spiritual master through which you can solidify this desire. You know, but the desire should come first.
The sincere desire that I'm not satisfied with whatever
offering this world can give to me, I can only be satisfied if I have some transcendent truths, some higher truths, some spiritual truth, some spiritual experience. And at the same time, some spiritual experience is coming.
You know, I remember it's very interesting in my life, in my not very, you know, exemplary life, it also like this, you know, I I I remember very much when I was utterly frustrated.
I was doing, as Suvarna Gaura Hari said, molecular biology. I only remember about this when I when somebody introduces me I already forget long ago. So I was doing this, I was more or less I mean it was reenactment
of the uh you know early līlā of Nimai Pandit when he was screening his scholarly līlā, I was displaying displaying my pastime līlā of my scientific līlā.
I was trying to find the truth by studying science, but I was so utterly frustrated because at one point I understood very clearly that the study of science will not reveal the truth to me. I just understand it's a scam.
It's a big scam. Everyone is is trying to you know to pause or to pretend that this is the way to know the truth. No, they don't know the truth. You know.
Recently I listened to some scientific lecture, and the scientist said that the beauty of the science is that uh all the mistakes of the science are very practical.
Well something like this, he said something really ridiculous, you know. And we all know instinctively, deep in the heart, we know I'm born to know the truth. I have to know the truth. I have to know the higher truth.
And uh in the pursuit of this, uh in the wrong pursuit of this higher truth, I may go this this little or that līlā. I may study Sanskrit or I may study molecular biology, but it's all wrong.
Uh the real thing is that understand uh that I should know the higher truths, and the higher truth can only be revealed to myself. I cannot, by my own endeavors, I cannot find the higher truth.
And this is exactly what happened when Lord Chaitanya found himself in front of this imprints of uh in front of Vishnu Pada in Gaya, in front of the imprint of Vishnu's lotus feet, he felt. The Lord revealed himself.
And at this very moment, the desire to serve the lotus feet appeared in his heart. As Vrindavan Das Thakur says, at this very moment, the desire to serve his own lotus feet appeared in the heart of the Lord.
To show us that he's the Lord Himself, He is enacting this pastime for us.
For us to understand what is necessary uh to proceed in this spiritual journey and he shows that this desire to worship the lotus feet of the Lord and to experience this spiritual experience which is accompanied by the worshipping lotus feet of the Lord appeared in the heart of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And at this very moment, Ishwarapuri came and the puzzle became all of a sudden solved. Lord Chaitanya understood everything.
Of course, he knew everything from the beginning, but in his pastime, he said, now I understand everything. Now I understand why I met you before, but didn't appreciate you before so much. Didn't really.
I was not ready to surrender to your lotus feet. Yes, I saw you, yeah, nice, nice, nice. Very nice. Nice sadhu. Hare Krishna. No problem. Come to my home, I will feed you with some prasad. Not yet ready.
But this process of opening the hearts through humility, through going to a holy place, through having some sort of spiritual experience and then the spark of desire to serve, then only the spiritual master comes.
Because the purpose of a spiritual master is to receive your service, is to ignite and to fan the spark of desire to serve.
By giving you the opportunity to serve, by giving you the mission to serve, by giving you the uh you know the uh yeah by giving you all the facilities to serve.
So, you know, like we build this beautiful temple, what it is. It's just, you know, for us the opportunity to serve. The Lord doesn't need this temple, you know. He has so many temples.
You know, in every village in India, you have five temples. Why do we need one more? Just because we need to serve. We need to serve the way we can serve the Lord.
And, uh, Isvarapuri comes there and the Lord becomes overwhelmed and he says, now I know I am here in, uh, in, uh, Gaya because you are here and because I want to uh meet with you. So he goes uh uh to Ishwarapuri
Testing sincere desire through service
and he speaks with Ishwarapuri and he enjoys some rasa. And actually, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada, who is commenting on these verses of Chaitanya Bhagavad, he says that you know unless
one is fed up with Vishta Vishya Rasa. Vishta means stu, vishaya means sense enjoyment and rasa means rasa, the taste. He says, unless one is fed up with this Vishta Vishya
rasa, the beautiful taste of the stool of material enjoyment, he is not ready to receive the taste for spiritual rasa. To appreciate spiritual rasa, to understand what is spiritual rasa uh and how valuable
it is, you have to first turn away from this uh material rasa and uh mm material enjoyments. And actually the pilgrimage.
Going to the holy place is a very good way to get out from the vicious circle of your normal life so to speak.
When you go in the morning, uh, you know, take your car and go in the morning for two hours in the traffic of Bangalore to your office, and then spend, you know, eight hours in the office and go two hours back and
so for that pilgrimage is there to take you out from this vicious circle of your so-called normal life and give you some spiritual experience and if you appreciate this spiritual experience.
If the real appreciation of spiritual experience is there, then the spiritual master comes to you and says, «You're ready». And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu meets with uh Ishwarapuri and he's becoming convinced.
And then and then you know next day, the very next day Lord Chaitanya is still there in Gaya, the very next day, Ishvarapuri himself comes to the dwelling of Lord Chaitanya.
And he comes to the dwelling of Lord Chaitanya when Lord Chaitanya is cooking prasādam for himself. He started cooking some rice and some subji for himself. I don't know how he did it, but you know, he he was doing this.
And at this very moment, you know, Ishvarapuri knocks at the door and says, «May I come in?» And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, «Yes, this is the most beautiful moment. I just cooked.
Prasādam, please take» and you know, take the prasādam and he said uh
Ishvarapuri says, «If I take the prasādam now, what will you eat?» And he said, «No problem, I will cook myself again». And Ishvarapuri said, «No, no, no, no, no need to cook again.
You you know, uh share it, you know, half by half. You cooked enough, give me half and leave half for you». Ishwarapuri actually is making a test.
He's testing Lord Caitanya. You know. You said you want to serve. Okay, let's see. You know, you're hungry. You're ready to take your meal? Let's see how you behave. He comes to you and he tests your sincerity.
How sincere you are to serve. And Lord Chitanya says, no, no, no, no, no, no need. I will cook myself, no problem. I will, uh, cook, uh, again, prasādaḥ. Please take everything which is there.
And this Vrapuri, he eats everything till the single grain of rice. Nothing left. And, of course, uh, and Lord Chaitanya puts the sandalwood paste on his forehead and garland and serves his lotus feet.
And he he passes the test. He gives everything which is there with him to him.
And then Vrindavan does Takur very interestingly, he says that at this moment, while Lord Chaitanya was worshipping Ishvarapuri by applying sandalwood paste on his forehead and worshipping his lotus feet, at this moment Ramadevi Lakshmi Devi herself cooked Prasadam
for the Lord, so he didn't miss much, Ramadevi herself, she cooked prasāda, and the Lord took and he par- partook the prasāda, uh, which was cooked in the meantime, uh, but he showed that he is sincere.
I'm ready to serve. I am there to serve. I'm not for myself. I'm not cooking for myself. I'm going for my spiritual master.
Receiving diksha and meditating on Gopinatha
So next day, the Lord Chaitanya himself goes to Israpuri and he says, please give me dīkṣā-mantra. And it's very interesting, also, one more little detail, which is also very significant.
When the Ishwara Puri himself first come to him to test him and to taste prasadam cooked by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself, he enters his door and while entering the door, he's little, you know, drunk with love of God.
He is uh not completely normal, you know, he's his his head is reeling, you know, he's like the sun. His ecstatic emotions is there overwhelming his heart. And he's chanting.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare. It's very interesting because first Ishvarupuri gave him first initiation, initiating him into this Mahā-mantra.
And he himself came to the Lord by chanting the names of the Lord and showing how beautiful it is, He Himself comes. So when it comes to you know to the first
initiation, then you know the initiative may be with the spiritual master. He comes to his disciple and he says, «Come on, come on, let's take this holy name of the Lord.
But then Lord Chaitanya himself, the very next evening, he goes to Ishwarapuri, he bows down to his lotus
to Ishvarapuri, he bows down to his lotus feet and he says, «Please give me diksha-mantra, please give me your mercy in the form of diksha-mantra», because what is diksha-mantra? Diksha-mantra is the mercy, uh, is the mercy given to the disciple.
Anugraha. It is explained by Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī in Bhakti-sandarbha that the diksha-mantra is nothing but Anugraha. The concentrated form of the mercy of the Lord given to the disciples
through the lips of the spiritual master. So he asks for the initiation
and this Isvarapuri says, «Do you have recommendation from your temple president?» No, he doesn't say it. He says, «No problem, I'll give you initiation. I'll give you mantra.
Please listen very carefully to this mantra», and he gives this ten-syllable mantra, which is uh, mantra about Krishna and Vrindavan and his relationship with gopis. He gives this ten-syllable mantra to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And again, very significant point in the whole description. Well, I should finish now, right? Okay. So that, uh, in the next couple of days, one or two days, Lord Chaitanya is still there in Gaya and
he sits down and he starts chanting his Gayatri mantra. And he chants his Gayatri mantra silently as it is supposed to be in his dhyana, in his deep meditation, he's meditating on Gopijanavalabha,
on the beautiful form of the Lord as Gopinak, as the master of the gopis. And total, complete.
It is actually said that even before that, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura said that when, uh, in Gaya, after meeting with Īśvara Purī and Dastakur said that when uh in Gaya, after meeting with Sishwarapuri and
Deepening feelings of spiritual separation
uh, receiving some mercy from Īśvara Purī, Different sort of feelings overwhelmed Lord's heart.
Sometimes he would feel vātsalya-rasa towards the Lord, sometimes he would feel very acute dāsya-rasa and he wanted to serve the Lord. Sometimes he would feel sakhya-rasa, sometimes he would feel mādhurya-rasa.
Different rasas reflecting, very reflecting, not, not a single rasa. Different rasas were reflecting in his pure heart because his heart was already pure and was capable, restored the ability to reflect the transcendental emotions.
But then when he sits down and repeats the mantra, repeats this ten syllable mantra given to him by Ishwara Puri. That cute sense of separation overwhelms him. Where is my lord? Where is my lord? Where is my lord?
He's so beautiful. He is so beautifully graces his devotees. He is performing his eternal pastimes in Vrindavan by, uh, dancing, rāsa dance with the gopis. And here I am. What am I doing here?
What am I doing here in this place? What am I doing here? You know, deprived of his association. I need to go to him because separation means the impetus to meet.
Separation means, you know, if you're overwhelmed with this Vipralamba, it means that you desire the meeting. Vipralamba nourishes your desire to meet, and he's overwhelmed.
And uh, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thakura Prabhupada, while commenting on this pastime, he says: this is the mood which Lord Chaitanya brought to us to experience.
We have to learn how to experience uh, vipralamba uh, rasa or vipralamba, uh, uh, mood, uh, the, uh, feeling of separation with the Lord. And this is why the mantra is given to us.
We have to try to experience this mood of separation. What am I doing here? I still didn't see Krishna. So many years after, I still didn't see Krishna, I still didn't have darśana.
You know, I remember, you know, once I went many times I went to different astrologers, very highly qualified astrologers, and they all said, you know, you will have darśana of Krishna. And still I didn't have darśana of Krishna.
Recently somebody else said when you're 80 years old, you will have darśana of Krishna. So some hope is still there.
It's gradually vanishing, but, but the point is that you know the desire to meet with Krishna has to achieve certain peak, certain level of intensity. The Lord is not so cheap. He is not coming to you just by your demand.
Oh yeah, let me see you. Okay, nice, no problem. You know, it doesn't work like this. You know, the desire has to be so acute, so much so that the tears on your eyes will flow. Oh my Lord, I want to see you.
Oh my Lord, what am I doing here? My heart is empty because of this separation with you. And uh, you know, totally overwhelmed uh by this feeling of separation, Lord Chaitanya says, I'm going to Mathura. That's it.
Enough for this Gaya līlā and other līlās. Now there is only one līlā, only Vrindavan līlā. No other līlās. And he's and he's crying and crying and crying.
His disciples are coming to him and they say, you know, Master Guru Maharaj, We have to go back to Navadvīpa. He says, I'm not going to Navadvīpa. I'm not going back to my family. I'm not going back to the saṁsāra.
My only goal in life is Mathura and he starts crying. And disciples they try to console him and say, you know, no problem, you know, you
will no no problem when the next vacation is there you will go to Vrindavan. Now do your duty. No job anymore, no duties anymore. My heart is there in Vrindavan. And he says, You go back to Navadvīpa. I'm not going.
I'm going to Mathura. My way is different. I'm going to Mathura.
Ethereal instruction to begin sankirtana
And early in the morning, without saying a word to anyone, he starts to Mathura while chanting the holy name of the Lord. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.
And he travels for some distance, but all of a sudden he hears the voice from the sky. And the demigods say: you know, it's not time for you to go to Mathura. The time will come when you will go to Mathura, no problem.
But now do your duty. Now go back to Bengal and distribute books.
Literally that's what they said to Lord Chaitanya, they said, you came to propagate this movement of love of God. You came to start this Sankirtan movement. Didn't you remember it? Why are you going this?
Now you will go to Mathura and you will drown yourself in Yamuna and you know and you will never fulfill the mission for which you came to this material world.
You came to this material world to overwhelm, to overflood all this material world with love of Godhead, go to Navadvīpa and start your saṅkīrtana movement. We are your humble servants.
The demigods from the sky they say, uh, were hum youble, sir? Maybe not so humble at this moment of time. Because we want to remind you what is the real purpose of your advent
to this earth, your real purpose is to bring this beautiful Sankirtan movement to the earth so that everyone would start chanting Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama and Lord Chaitanya, of course, being obedient to this Akash Vani Ethereal voice.
He turns back and he goes to Navadvīpa with his disciples, but he is a different person now. Before that he was a great scholar Nimai, the pride of Navadav, and now he is Babuk Nimai.
He is completely transformed, he's humble, he is feeling separation with the Lord, and he is ready to serve everyone whom he meets. And this complete transformation, miraculous transformation, impresses everyone.
And by this miraculous transformation, Lord Chaitanya actually teaches us what does it mean to preach. To preach means to experience oneself.
There's different moods of spiritual love, to understand the depths of this experiences and try to transmit the depths of this experience to the hearts of other people.
Because this is the only way to correct or to improve or to purify the polluted hearts of the people of Kali Yuga.
Little town of Navadvip, which is described elaborately by Vrindavan Das Thakur in the beginning of Chaitanya Bhagavatam is a sample, is a model of the whole Kali Yuga society.
And nobody was impressed by Advaita Ācārya in Navadvīpa. Although he was so learned, you know, they were respectful to him, but nobody was impressed by him. Advaita Ācārya is the powerful incarnation of the Lord.
He couldn't preach Krishna consciousness. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself came.
He couldn't do anything unless he took initiation from Viswarapuri, was overwhelmed by this feeling of separation with the Lord and came back as Bhabuk Nimai, as Nimai who is experiencing Bhav, experiencing love of God at every moment of his life.
And then his pastime of preaching and spreading this Sankirtan movement starts. And we are all beautiful fruits of this pastime.
We are all the result of his emotions which are still raging in his heart and we are receiving these raging emotions and uh in this way getting the purpose in our life. So thank you very much Hare Krishna.
Thank you so much for an ex. One question. So when we are chanting, Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, nânyad vaḥ prārthaye. So is that supposed to come with happiness or with the vipralambha? How should we understand that exactly?
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu brought vipralambha-bhāva to us, and, uh, the spiritual experience starts with Vipralamba and Vipralamba makes our desire to meet with the Lord very strong and very pure.
And then only we can ho have some other experiences.
But vipralamba-bhāva is the bhāva which He brought and which we are supposed also to experience and and it's easy in one sense because when we understand who is the Lord and where I am. Where is the Lord and where I am? And what is the difference? What is the gulf of difference between him and myself and my fallen condition?
Then you know we may experience some tears. It may not be pure tears of love of God, but it may be the tears of pity towards ourselves. Still it's good. Still these tears